Obsidian Ridge - Jess Lebow [76]
"Clusterfang," whispered Quinn.
The demon frowned. "This is not finished." He clomped away, cloaking himself in the shadows as if he were wrapping them around his body. "You have not even begun to suffer for what you have done to me." Slowly, his frame dissolved into the darkness. By the time his last word had finished its echo, the demon had disappeared entirely.
Quinn turned and ran through the puddles, back to where he had entered the cavern. His feet were soaked, his boots heavy from the water. Behind him he could hear the tapping of the spider's legs as they worked their way over the solid mineral floor.
Dashing toward the narrow passage they had squeezed through, Quinn pulled up short, grabbing hold of a nearby stalagmite to stop his forward momentum.
There in front of him, slipping sideways into the cave the same way he had, was another helmed horror. Its metallic form filled the exit, leaving no room to get by, no room for escape.
Clusterfang had taken over the opposite end of the cave, blocking off the only other way out. The deepspawn's spider minions were climbing the walls. Just watching them scamper, their bulbous bodies gliding on top of those eight spindly legs, made the skin on Quinn's back crawl and his spine itch.
He was trapped, and Evelyne was nowhere to be found.
"I should have known better than to trust her," he muttered, glancing side to side, trying to figure out which beast he wanted to fight first. The spiders were farther away than the horror, but they were coming on fast. Neither was going to be a quick fight.
With a second weapon, maybe he could hold them all at bay. As it stood, he was going to have to try to back himself into a corner and hope he had enough reach.
The spiders were almost on him, and the horror had squeezed itself out of the crack in the wall, closing in.
"Up here! Quick!"
Quinn looked up to see Evelyne's upper body sticking out of a round hole between two stalactites, maybe twice his height off the floor.
She hung down, extending her aims. "Grab my hand. I'll pull you up."
Bending his legs, he leaped into the air just as the first of the spiders arrived. His right hand wrapped around hers, and his left caught the edge of the hole. With surprising speed, Evelyne scampered back into the space in the ceiling of the cave.
Quinn felt the spiders' limbs feebly try to pull him back down. But it was no use. With both hands now on solid stone, the Claw pulled himself up and out of the cavern, tumbling forward into the darkness ahead.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The moon had passed its zenith long ago, its measured descent now almost complete. One more shift of the city watch and the sun would begin to rise, filling the void left by the moon's departure.
But until then, darkness ruled.
Two half-ores, concealed by the magic woven into their armor, climbed the sheer wall of Klarsamryn. They moved slowly, silently. There were far too many guards on duty that night to be careless.
At the top of the wall, the two assassins waited, listening. When the time was right, they nodded to one another, and as one they slipped over the edge and onto the king's personal terrace.
Without a sound they slit the throats of the two guards standing outside the door. With barely more than a whisper, they did the same to the two inside the room. Stalking across the floor, they reached the side of the king's bed where they unwrapped their specially prepared blades.
Had the king been awake, he would have seen the two half-ores silhouetted against the last of the moon's light coming in through the open glass door. He would have seen them lift their knives, dripping with poison. He would have also seen what neither of the two assassins did-a lithe black figure bounding over the edge of the terrace.
It landed at the edge of the room, even more silent than the half-ores. It strode purposefully across the marble, careful not to disturb the dead guards, then crept up behind